I will now call this meeting to order.
Welcome to meeting number six of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs. I'd like to start by acknowledging that I am joining you today from the traditional territory of the Haudenosaunee, Anishinabe and Chonnonton nations.
Pursuant to the order of reference of April 20, 2020, the committee is meeting for the purpose of receiving evidence concerning matters related to the government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Today's meeting is taking place by video conference and the proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website. During this meeting, the webcast will always show the person speaking rather than the entire committee.
In order to facilitate the work of our interpreters and ensure an orderly meeting, I would like to outline a few rules to follow. As you are speaking, if you are planning to alternate from one language to another, you will also need to switch the interpretation channel so that it will align with the language you are speaking. You may want to allow for a short pause when switching languages. That's the icon in the middle bottom of the screen, which on mine now says “English”. Unfortunately, it has an American flag, but we'll change that. That's the one you will click on to the language that you're speaking and if you're going to change to French, then change the origin language there.
Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. When you are ready to speak, you can either click on the microphone icon to activate your mike or you can hold down the space bar while you are speaking. When you release the bar, your mike will mute itself, just like a walkie-talkie button.
I remind you that all comments by members and witnesses should be addressed through the chair. Should members need to request the floor outside of their designated time for questions, they should activate their mike and state that they have a point of order. If a member wishes to intervene on a point of order that has been raised by another member, they should use the “raise hand” function. This will signal to the chair your interest to speak. To do so, you should click on “participants” at the bottom of the screen. When the list pops up, you will see that you can click on “raise hand” beside your name on the participants button.
When you're speaking, please speak slowly and clearly. When you are not speaking, your mike should be on mute. The use of headsets, as we have discovered, is strongly encouraged. If you have ear buds with a microphone, you should hold the microphone nearer to your mouth when you are speaking to boost the sound quality for the interpreters.
Should any technical challenges arise, for example, in relation to interpretation or if you are accidentally disconnected, please advise the chair or clerk immediately and the technical team will work to resolve them. Please note that we may need to suspend during these times as we need to ensure that all members are able to participate fully.
Before we get started, can everyone click on their screens in the top right-hand corner to switch to the gallery view? With this view, you should be able to see all of the participants in a grid. This will ensure that all video participants can see each another.
During the meeting, we will also follow the same rules that usually apply to our normal meetings. Once again, we will have witnesses for two hours, but I'm going to ask the clerk to make a comment before we start.
In view of the fact that it is now 2:23, will we have an absolute deadline at the end of the meeting? Can you give us an indication, Madam Clerk, of how the timing will work today, in view of the delay with the technology?